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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Yay. More shots of shnow for your emotional pining of all things cold....Sorry about that. Got a sobering reality check yesterday (7/29) from a co-worker who suffers from the same genetic malady that I do, and I don't want to have it bleed into my blogging. After all, a blog is escapism at its very finest and one should try suspend the real world from invading it as much as humanly possible.

With that said, on with the show!

Another fine outstanding example of how much snow we got slammed with this past season, and as you can see, the plow basically went down the middle of the street and created a true one car pathway. And yes, those snowbanks are basically my height (5' 7") give or take a few inches.

They did run a sander on the road as well. Just not at the same time as the plow. The width of this road (my street) is about a car and a half, give or take. Amazingly enough, with all of this snow, we did not lose power in our neighborhood during the entire winter season.

Another fine example of Jenelle's creativity. This is a picture of a bird in a tree. The detail in the drawing is pretty good.

A clearer version of the picture, complete with the legendary Mr. Ducky.

About a month later, when the weather started to warm up to the point of melting the snow.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

In part 2, I gave everyone just a general overview of how bad the snow was this past January and February. This week's post will give everyone a good specific idea on just how bad it really was, mostly because these were taking during the bright sunshiny morning and afternoon. Nothing like a little bit of light to really bring out the ugliness of Mother Nature. Sort of like when someone uses black and white for dramatic and emotional photos instead of color.

This was taken from my shoveled out sidewalk. That shrub in the background and the tree in the foreground should give you a good idea of how deep the snow was in the front yard. Well that, and the buried car in the background.

If that didn't do the trick, then this shoveled out path (done by yours truly and not by my lazy ass son) should be a better example. The top of the wall that you see on the left is about two and a half feet from the ground. The hump that you see with the little opening in the foreground is actually a buried bush some three feet in height.

I was very fortunate to have a neighbor of mine help me with the driveway. I had shoveled down to the back end of my car before he came over with his snow blower, and together we finished out the driveway. The snowbanks are courtesy of the town plows. And just to give you a basic idea on how crappy the plowing was due to being smacked by back-to-back-to-back-back snowstorms (seriously, I am not exaggerating on the amount of snowstorms), where you see the last of the car shadow is about where the actual end of the driveway is. And you can definitely see how deep the snow is in the front yard, just by looking at the tree.

Because we got smacked sooooooo bad by the multiple snowstorms, it became virtually impossible to make a right turn from my street to Mountain Road for about a month. The multiple snowstorms basically forced the town to put the snow wherever they were able to find a spot for it. Thus, it got put on the corner of our yard, which is where stop sign is.

Think I'm fooling about the depth of the snow at the corner of my yard? The snowbank on the right is the same one in the previous pic. Mountain Road literally became a true one car road. If two cars were coming towards each other, whoever was closest to one of the side streets would stop about several feet from the side street and wait for the other car to pull over on the side street in order to let them pass. From this section of the road, there are only three other side streets. Out of those three, only two were used for this maneuver. The third was the road just before the multi-photographed concrete barrier and had a hill that absolutely ate up cars in this kind of weather.
About the only pretty things that you'll find in this entire series (besides Holly my cat) are the snow covered trees. Everything else just shows off Mother Nature at her worst.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Considering what's going on in California this weekend, maybe I should've called this, "Snow Armageddon"....oh well, and now, for something completely different, we have...winter in summer!

Continuing with our brief interlude of the warm fuzzies, I bring you yet another action packed shot of Holly stepping out her little cube. Doesn't she look all soft and fluffy? Doesn't this just want to make you pick her up and scritch her tummy until soft purrs of content fill your senses? I thought so.

By the way, this is my avatar on Facebook, which in keeping with my five year streak of never really showing my face in cyber space pretty much means that I'll be forever coming up with bizarre and unique photos to represent myself with. After all, how many people do you know have an avatar of a slaw dog and fries as an official representation of themselves to the public at large?

Now back to the issue at hand, soft fluffy white stuff. This is the tree that has been featured from time to time on my other blog, and I thought that this looked so funky and spooky that I needed to have a picture of it. And if you look very closely, you can see that the top of the snow almost reaches that twin trunk. My friends, that is about two feet of snow there.

This is about three and a half feet of snow in the backyard. I took this from the back porch. My mom's little dog did not do his thing for the entire winter season out there because as you can see, he would've vanished the second he made contact with the snow.

Looking towards the side. I'm estimating that there's almost four, simply because the top of the fence is just barely seen. That hump you see in the left foreground is the remnants of the dead tree that was cut down late last summer, which was most tree trunk. No, I did not walk back there either.

Looking towards the other side at the mountain. Looks kind of spooky and magical don't it. Nifty looking snowdrift on the deck there, isn't it? Just on the other side of the fence, I'm estimating that the snowbank is about five to six feet deep.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Yup. Even though you may be frying out your brain cells where you're currently living, on Shooting Suburbia, we are hip deep in the 2010/2011 Winter season, Connecticut style.

If you recall back in early January, I was doing some serious bitchin' about the lack of plowing, lack of traffic planning, the record amount of snowfall (115+ inches) and the fact my twenty minute daily commute turned into an hour. At the time, I had no pictorial proof to corroborate my bitchin'.

Guess what folks? I gots proof.

Feast your sizzled optic nerves on these little babies.

Yes, this is looking up my street where my house is situated. Those three white lumps that you see just off to the left are my car, my wife's car and my mother's car. That dry spot? Probably where a few cars idled trying to see around that ginormous snowbank in the foreground. And yes, there is a stop sign there. I do have a picture of it later on in the series.

Looking down the right side of the street. Yes, a plow did go down the street. The center of the street. Once. Which is why you see that funky snowbank in the foreground.

Looking up Mountain Road. Yes, that is the mountain off on the left. And no, that section of the road really doesn't get plowed more than three times a month during the winter season.

Brief mental health interlude. Holly taking a siesta in her little cube, which is located in our bedroom. Yes, Holly is preferred subject of choice when I feel the need to break up the monotony of the photo roll.

Another non-action shot of Holly. If you're wonderin' how I got those pics, especially since my body can't quite bend the normal way that other people can, I dropped to my knees, then flattened myself out. And yes, there were cries of pain and agony as I got back to my feet.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Yes, yes, yes. After a brief one week hiatus, I have a freshly squeezed overly ripened post for yous. Without further ado, the final part of "Is Autumn Winter?"

My cat Holly. This week, she was not a very good kitty. Last Sunday she made her escape from the house and when I got home, I found her hiding under the tool shed. Took me twenty minutes to get her out. Not satisfied with that little jaunt, she repeated it this past Wednesday night. My son and I found her after about ten minutes of searching in the pitch black. Still not satisfied, she snuck out again Thursday morning. I would love to tell you the entire sordid tale about that day, but frankly, it requires an Italian type of explanation (lots of wild arm and hand gestures) that simply doesn't translate to the blog very well. Unless I make a video of it. Which might not be a bad idea for a future post.

A brief tantalizing taste of the upcoming menance that was Winter 2010/11 here in Connecticut. Be very very afraid, because the next series of posts feature what I and every other resident of Connecticut bitched about in January and February of this year.

My resident mascot. And yes, his nemesis Sylvestor is sitting on my printer. And yes, that is my ancient (2008) computer.

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Look, what you see here is all mine. Not yours. It's also (c) 2010-16 by the owner of this blog, G. B. Miller. If you want to use, you must ask pretty please in order to do so. To ask pretty please, drop me an e-mail: georgebjr2006@hotmail.com